Chained
by Kgirl1
Summary: Kanan checks on Hera after the events of "Idiot's Array," and learns something important in the process.


**A/N: I debated making this a chapter in "Behind the Scenes," but in the end, I felt it was too important to Hera's development, and I didn't want it to get lost in the shuffle. The cultural implications of Lando pawning Hera off as a slave, and the ease with which he could do so, were glossed over in the show (which is, admittedly, for kids), which is the reason this follow-up was written.**

* * *

Kanan took a few tentative steps into the cockpit. Everyone was still cooling off after the calamity that had been Lando Calrissian, but Hera, as usual, was already back to work.

"Hey," he said. Kanan reached out for the Force, in an effort to read the room.

"Hi." Her voice was flat. He didn't need the Force to know that was a bad sign.

"I brought you some caf," he said, holding it out.

"Thanks," Hera said distractedly. She didn't move to accept it, so he set the mug down on the dash, and awkwardly settled into the copilot's chair.

"How are you holding up?" Kanan asked.

She looked at him for the first time since he'd entered the cockpit, but it wasn't the warm, welcoming smile he'd been hoping for—rather, a brief and irritated glance.

"Fine." He could practically see her holding back an eye roll as she turned back to her instruments. A sense of wrongness sparked in his chest.

"You sure?" Kanan asked. Hera sighed impatiently and spun her chair to face him, waving her hands.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Her brusqueness surprised him, but he supposed he deserved it.

"I just wanted to check on you, that's all," he said slowly. "Make sure Azmorigan didn't do any damage."

He felt Hera's energy surge and suppress a strong reaction, and knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to say. Kanan winced as she rolled her eyes.

"I think I can handle myself against a sloppy smuggler, but thanks."

There was an impatient, disapproving look in her eyes, and her arms were folded. Every inch of Hera radiated hostility, both by appearance and in the Force.

He sighed and scratched the back of his neck.

"I know you can, I just…" He trailed off, and she didn't give him a chance to find the words.

"I've been through worse, Kanan. I'm fine." Her voice was flat, cool.

He leaned forward and tried to push his way past the hostility in her eyes. "Look, Hera, I'm just trying to say I'm sorry—"

"I _know_ you're sorry," she huffed, and spun back to the controls. "You've told me a hundred times now," Hera added under her breath, punching at buttons and switches.

Kanan sighed. He watched her attack the dashboard for another moment before speaking again.

"I'm trying to say I'm sorry that you ended up playing the slave girl," he said finally. "I know what the connotations are."

Her hands faltered on the controls, and Hera managed one more button before falling silent and still. She stared straight ahead, breathing softly, and he bit his lip, worried he'd said too much. Eventually, her shoulders slackened.

He waited.

Hera heaved a painful sigh "My…"

She faltered, and Kanan leaned forward. Hera hesitated another minute before speaking.

"My father didn't take me seriously, at first, when I told him that I wanted to fly," she said, staring straight ahead.

"It was after we'd finished properly grieving for my mother, not long after the Clone War ended. He thought it was nothing but daydreams, the insipid babble of a girl who'd lived through war." Hera paused. "As the years went on, I think realized it was something more, but he would always dismiss it. There was always a reason—usually Ryloth—for him to say no."

She trailed her fingers idly along the dash.

"We were equally stubborn, so I didn't give up any more than he gave in. It started as a discussion, then went to nagging, to bickering, to full-out arguing," she said. "One day… I don't know what made it so special, but there was one day..."

* * *

"Hera, you belong on Ryloth!"

"Father, I don't _want_ to stay on Ryloth, I want to _fly!"_

The second the shout left her tongue, Hera's chest tightened in fear. It seemed she and her father had been in a constant state of disagreement lately, but she never raised her voice at him. The current altercation was one of their worst.

Cham's eyes flashed, and she braced herself for the explosion. But rather than furrowing in anger, his expression suddenly went as blank and unreadable as if someone had drawn a curtain over it. His mouth formed a thin line, and without so much as a blink, he stood up and motioned for her to follow him. Hera, stunned and confused, opened her mouth and then closed it, deciding against it, and followed him as he walked, stiff-shouldered, into his study. He pointed at the chair facing his desk and spoke one word to her.

"Sit."

The cold, pervasive silence of the office and his frozen manner convinced her to comply. Slowly, Hera sat down in the chair, while Cham stood and placed something on the desk. He punched a few buttons on the device, each movement a calculated strike.

"Watch."

Hera looked up at her father with wide, confused eyes. Cham turned his stare to the holovid and crossed his arms.

The video feed was shaky. It centered on a young twi'lek girl, her skin luminescent in the dark of night, walking alone on a city street. The camera zoomed in on her as she glanced over her shoulder, her eyes wide with unease. A deep sense of wrongness took root in Hera's belly.

In an instant, the girl was surrounded—men of all species with whips and chains. With jerky movement, the man carrying the camera ran to just feet away from her.

She fought, exactly the way Hera had been taught to, dirty, no-holds-barred, Ryloth style, clawing and biting. The girl threw sand in the eyes of one of the men, who howled and seized one of her lekku in retaliation. Hera gasped, and her hand flew to her own lekku, as the victim screamed and fell still. Whatever sleemo was still filming brought the camera close to her face, where tears streamed from her eyes. A cry choked out from her lips as the first man dug his fingernails into her tchun, and the surrounding attackers bound her in chains.

Watching in horror, Hera prayed it would end there, but scenes continued to roll forward. Naked twi'lek women, being marched in a line; a room crammed with slaves, packed in shoulder-to-shoulder; girls who weren't much older than her, girls who were younger than her, bound and gagged; twi'lek dancers with chains around their lekku and masters, cruelly yanking at them. Women who looked like her mother, her friends, all bruised, cut, chained, humiliated, abused, battered, and subjugated to the same barbaric fate.

Her stomach roiled, but the images came faster, searing into her mind. And behind them, the cold, hard eyes of her father, watching her with his arms crossed.

She knew it was a test, that'd she be playing right into his hands if she yielded, but Hera could take no more. "Stop it, please," she begged.

With a single detached motion, Cham switched the holo off, and Hera could have collapsed in relief. She tried to hold her shaking shoulders tall, and realized that there were tears on her cheeks.

"Father…" Her voice couldn't hide its tremble, and she looked up at him, horrified. "What _was_ that?"

Cham stared at her without sympathy, and his eyes burned into hers.

" _That_ is what happens to twi'leks who leave Ryloth."

The room seemed to collapse around them, and she felt a crushing pressure on her chest. "Father—"

"Your mother wanted me to wait until you were older, to tell you what happens when our people leave their own." Cham's voice rose; his previous icy control replaced by a slowly boiling anger. "But you left me no choice, child. You never do."

"But Father—"

"Enough of this flying nonsense, Hera!" Cham shouted. "Your place is here, on Ryloth!" He slammed his hands against the desk.

Hera jolted back at the outburst, and after a moment, Cham's features softened in regret. He leaned against his desk and took a slow breath.

"Where I can keep you safe," he exhaled with control. Hera looked up at him, and he sighed again. "We've lost so much in our fight for freedom, daughter…Your mother died for it. She couldn't bear to see you throw all of that away, to go out into the galaxy only to suffer the fate of so many others."

Hera cast her eyes downward. "I know, Father," she said softly. "But I wouldn't—"

"Hera." Cham gave his signature sigh, the one that relayed he thought she should already know what he was about to tell her. "So many twi'lek women think they can escape the slavers, outsmart them. You're stronger than most, but you would fall. They always do." He stared down at the desk, his eyes regretful, but mouth set in a hard, determined line. "I won't have such a fate for my daughter."

"I know, Father, but…"

His eyes flashed up to meet hers, and anxiety cut her sentence short.

"But what?"

He was challenging her—she recognized it well, but she refused to back down this time. Hera stared down at the floor and took a deep breath.

"I… I need to be up there," she said quietly. Disapproval flashed on Cham's face, and Hera jumped to explain herself. "I can't explain it, but—"

"Hera." Cham's tone made her wince. He touched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "You're just a child. You're too young to know what you want."

She jumped out of her chair. "But Father—"

" _Enough_ , Hera." With his voice firm, he dismissed her as effortlessly as he would a soldier, and her courage was crushed in seconds. "I'll hear no more of this pilot talk. You are needed here—for your own good and the good of Ryloth." Cham slid the holovid into a drawer and closed it forcefully. He came around his desk and touched a hand briefly to her shoulder before leaving. "It's what's best."

The door shut behind him, and she was left sitting in the chair, staring at the gaping, empty desk.

* * *

Hera was still gazing at the dashboard, when she finished the story. She didn't talk about her father much, but Kanan knew enough where the story didn't shock him.

Of course, that didn't make it any less heartbreaking.

"Hera…" He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but then thought better of it. "I'm so sorry."

"I tried, Kanan," she said, still looking straight ahead, her eyes lost in memory. "I tried to stay, tried to help my people, tried to be who and what he wanted me to be…" She trailed off and shook her head. "It wasn't enough for him. He got lost in his rebellion, and I left for mine."

Kanan didn't know what to say, so he stayed in the chair, facing her, trying to radiate support.

"Anyways," she sighed. "That's not the point. In regards to the slave girl act, yes, I hated it. I left home knowing that I would do anything for the rebellion but that. I told myself I'd never become that, would never even fake it, no matter how important a mission was. So to be tricked into it, to play that role, even for just a few minutes…" she trailed off, her hands fidgeting. "It makes me sick."

Hera played with the fabric of her gloves before speaking again. "My mother would have been ashamed," she said quietly, and the words tugged at Kanan's heart.

"I'm sorry, Hera. I know I can't tell you enough, but I'm sorry."

He wanted to reach out to her, to pull her into his arms and flood the Force with his remorse, but that was what he needed. This was about her.

Hera shook her head. "It's the rebellion, right?" She pulled her shoulders back and gave him a smile that was far too bright. "We do what we have to do."

Sadness tugged at his face, but there was something desperate in her eyes that begged him not to push further. Kanan bit his lip and simply lay his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm here," he said. "If you need anything, I'm here."

She gave him a grateful smile and reached up to twine her fingers with his own. "Stay for a while?"

"Always."

She turned back to her work, and he settled into his chair, keeping an eye on her and the stars.


End file.
